WS: Emerging Critical Perspectives on the Digital in Literary and Cultural Studies

How do emerging technological tools influence studies in the humanities? How can a dialogue be established between quantitative data and qualitative evaluations of literary and cultural texts? How does the growing emphasis on new digital methodologies relate to the need to maintain a critical eye on ethical issues in textual analysis?

To address these questions, the workshop is conceived as a space for discussing both experimental and established approaches in literary and cultural studies involving the use of digital tools to address urgent global issues, particularly current ecological crises.

The first part of the workshop provides an overview of recent critical discussions addressing the diversified approaches embraced by the field of Digital Humanities, which have shaped into sub-fields such as "critical digital humanities" (Dobson 2019, Viola 2023) and "digital environmental humanities". Following this concise theoretical introduction, three diverse ongoing research projects related to these fields, developed by the workshop conductor, will be presented.

The second part of the workshop is dedicated to collectively reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the topics and examples provided and sharing personal evaluations on the evolving study trajectories emerging from the growing influence of the digital in the humanities.

No previous knowledge of Digital Humanities is required, while experts in the field are encouraged to participate and bring their own vision on the topic.

Suggested readings (which also represent the theoretical framework of the workshop):

Dobson, J. E. 2019. Critical Digital Humanities: The Search for a Methodology. University of Illinois Press. 

Ricaurte, P., Chaudhuri, S., & Fiormonte, D. 2022. Global Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Travis, C. et al., 2022, Routledge Handbook of the Digital Environmental Humanities, London: Routledge.

Viola, L. 2023. The Humanities in the Digital: Beyond Critical Digital Humanities, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023

// Dr. Stefano Rozzoni is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bergamo. He has previously worked as a postdoc Assistant and lecturer at Universität Graz, Austria. His current postdoctoral project is dedicated to exploring human-nonhuman relational ethics in contemporary anglophone literary and cultural texts (2010-present) through the lens of the Digital Environmental Humanities. His research interests encompass environmental narratives, posthumanism, and the pastoral genre within British Modernism and contemporary literature and culture. His work includes various media and covers topics such as Franciscanism, ecology, and economics; urban and rural spaces; human-nonhuman relationalities; and ecofascisms.

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